TELEVISION/RADIO; Taking a Chance When There's Nothing at Stake

SITTING in a director's chair while make-up is dabbed on his nose, Ben Affleck gets ready for a flurry of television interviews, sips a fruit smoothie through a straw and does what he has come here to do: spin low expectations for the fate of ''Push, Nevada,'' the risky new ABC series he helped create, produce and write. He may wear a red leather superhero's costume in the movie he is shooting, ''Daredevil,'' but at the semi-annual convention of television critics and reporters, which ended on Friday, he wears an executive's suit and tie to explain why he is television's biggest underdog.

''Push, Nevada'' is far and away the most innovative series on anyone's fall schedule, a wry mystery about an I.R.S. agent searching for embezzled money in a town that makes Twin Peaks look almost normal. (What kind of crazy clockwork makes everyone in Push have sex at 9:15 each night and turn out the lights at 11?) The show invites viewers to find clues hidden in the story -- they can go to a Web site the characters mention or call a phone number glimpsed on a fictional fax -- and win more than a million dollars in real life. This weird series demands careful cultivation of the audience, yet it has been scheduled to run on Thursdays at 9 against the No. 1 show on television, the CBS crime drama ''C.S.I.,'' and the popular NBC comedy ''Will and Grace.'' That sounds like a kamikaze mission even for an established show, much less a hard-to-explain hybrid (it's a mystery story, it's a game, it's a comic drama).

So here is Mr. Affleck in Pasadena with Sean Bailey, who shares his creator-writer-producer role. They have already appeared on stage at a news conference, then moved to a cavernous room next door that serves as a makeshift television studio. As the makeup man works on him, Mr. Affleck recalls his reaction to the news that his show had been handed a lethal time slot. ''Everyone called me and said, 'You're going to hate this,' and I thought: We're off the hook. If we fail, we can say, What did you expect?''

More seriously, he reinforces the day's message. ''The time slot is so laughably, so absurdly difficult, nobody's expecting anyone to watch, so we can tick up slowly,'' he says. He knows ratings will be bad. ''Maybe a very mediocre number for us is a win,'' he adds. Then in quick succession he tells ''Access Hollywood,'' ''Entertainment Tonight'' and ''E! Entertainment Television'' why it's important to let all 13 episodes of ''Push, Nevada'' appear, so that viewers can reach the conclusion of the mystery plot.

Ask the network's executives that question and they'll give you the reasoning behind their decision. And the saga behind ''Push'' -- the off-screen tale of creativity, business strategies and public relations -- becomes a revealing illustration of why so few daring shows make it on the air at all.

ABC's ratings last season were so dismal that even its executives are talking about rebuilding rather than beating the competition. If the network has any hope of success, it's not going to happen against ''C.S.I.''

Lloyd Braun, chairman of the ABC Entertainment Television Group, said in an interview: ''We need to build a presence on Thursday night. We have no illusion we'll come in first or even second.'' But precisely because the competition is so overwhelming, he added: ''The place for us to take a chance is Thursday at 9. If it misses it's not going to cut a coronary artery. And if it hits, even in a small way, it's a huge bonanza.'' In other words, a network is most likely to take a risk when it is desperate and has nothing to lose. That reasoning goes a long way toward explaining why network schedules are so crammed with bland, safe shows.

If ''Push'' gains a tiny but loyal audience, Mr. Braun promises, the series will stay on the air. The caveat is that it can't lose viewers during the course of the hour, as ABC's critically praised medical drama ''Gideon's Crossing'' did two years ago. Otherwise, ''We'll keep it if it gets a 2,'' he says, referring to a ratings number so minuscule it would send most new shows into oblivion overnight. If nothing else, ''Push'' is likely to reach a young male audience, a target for the movie advertising that makes Thursdays so lucrative for the networks.

Obviously, ABC and LivePlanet, the company producing the series, agree on the low-expectations spin. And, ironically, ''Push'' has gotten a lot of attention here because its time slot is so off-the-charts horrible. The scheduling became a major issue -- many reporters liked the show and resented seeing it thrown away. But the silver-lining approach can't be what LivePlanet hoped for. Mr. Bailey said he learned about the schedule in May when he walked into the ABC ''upfront'' (the official presentation of the fall lineup for advertisers) and a salesman offered his sympathy.

Mr. Bailey and Mr. Affleck are partners in LivePlanet along with Matt Damon and Chris Moore. And while the company clearly benefits from its movie-star clout, it also produces smart, adventurous programs combining television, the Internet and real-life elements. It is best known for ''Project Greenlight,'' HBO's addictive series about the making of a film. (A second season is in the works.) ''The Runner,'' a reality show in which television audiences tracked down an elusive contestant as he traveled across the country, was planned for ABC but dropped because its use of false identities and subterfuge seemed too fraught after Sept. 11. For ''Push, Nevada,'' clues to the money's location will exist on Web sites and in everyday life as well as on TV. Thinking outside the television box puts ''Push'' in a good position to reach young computer-savvy audiences, but someone has to watch the show first.

Networks, of course, are in business to make money, not to make viewers' lives easier. CBS is setting up another tough choice by scheduling one of its strongest new dramas, ''Without a Trace,'' against ''E.R.'' Leslie Moonves, the CBS president, told reporters he doesn't expect the show, about an F.B.I. missing person's unit, to beat ''E.R.,'' but hopes it will make inroads.

Putting ''Push, Nevada'' against ''C.S.I.,'' though -- both sophisticated crime-solving series -- is the most striking example yet of the gap between a network's best interests and a viewer's. Maybe we should root for networks to fail, so they'll be desperate enough to offer something new.